


paint a heart repeating, beating

by nirav



Category: Rookie Blue
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-09-17
Updated: 2013-11-07
Packaged: 2017-12-26 20:44:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,379
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/970108
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nirav/pseuds/nirav
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>[post-ep au for 04.13.  holly was at the station.]</p><p>It isn’t real.  None of it is real, because this—this, the way Chloe is in a coma and Oliver is fighting through the fog of a concussion and Sam is in surgery—can’t be happening.  It can’t be happening, because Holly works in  a different building and doesn’t spend time in the police station and is never ever ever in direct proximity to people who are firing guns.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> this is 20% a product of not wanting to do any real work and 80% alcohol. whatever thoughts regarding typos or general sloppiness can be directed to the customer service department of the mikkeller brewery and whoever's responsible for selling me multiple bottles of 14% alcohol beer.

It isn’t real.  None of it is real, because this— _this_ , the way Chloe is in a coma and Oliver is fighting through the fog of a concussion and Sam is in surgery—can’t be happening.  It can’t be happening, because Holly works in  a different building and doesn’t spend time in the police station and is never ever ever in direct proximity to people who are firing guns.

Except it _is_ real, and Gail’s fingers are locked around her knees, fingernails digging through the heavy material of her pants, as they race towards the hospital.  Chris is grim and silent, the siren squealing through the roof as buildings blur outside the windows.  The bones in her hands creak the tighter she holds onto her knees, so persistent that surely Chris can hear it over the sound of the siren.

They have no information, no real information, just _there was a shooting at 15, Swarek was shot and a lab tech was wounded_ and Holly’s phone, the one she never turns off, the one she always answers, has gone straight to voicemail seven times.  Nausea builds in her stomach and she bites down on the inside of her cheek.  There’s nothing for her to throw up because she hasn’t eaten in hours, since before Andy’s frantic radio calls brought them to a park with a bleeding Chloe, before she and Oliver took fire in a dirty alleyway, before she kissed Holly because Holly was babbling and scared and it was suddenly the only thing Gail could ever want out of that moment, but her stomach rebels anyways.  She manages to unwrap her fingers and fumble with her phone, pressing it to her ear and listening to it ring through to Holly’s voicemail for the eighth time.

“It might not be bad,” Chris says helplessly.  He lays on the horn and they blow through an intersection.  “If it was bad, they would have told us already, right?”

He’s talking about Swarek, because there’s nothing he can say that’s going to counter _lab tech_ and _wounded_ and eight unanswered phone calls.  Gail grinds her teeth together.  “Go faster.”

 

* * *

 

The hospital is a mill of activity, more sirens and movement and blurs, blue uniforms streaming around looking for information.  It’s a disaster zone of frantic cops, swarms of concern for Sam and the bullet in his stomach, but Gail’s palms are still warm from the skin of Holly’s cheeks and she can still taste cherry lip gloss and the vanilla lattes Holly indulges in every morning on her tongue, and she abandons the waiting room because there’s a wall of cops between her and the nurse’s station.  She knows this hospital—this fucking hospital, the one where Andy spilled her guts, the one where Traci lost the man she was going to marry, the one where Gail buried the broken pieces of her that a serial killer tried to pick apart— and it’s left, left, right, up the stairs, right to a quieter station, the one where she knows all of the nurses.

She’s rattling off Holly’s name, fingers tight around the edges of the counter, before Francine—blonde, 42, two kids, always snuck Gail an extra dessert—can even say hi.  “Is she here?  Was she brought in with the cop who was shot?”

Francine, to her credit, doesn’t question Gail’s demands, but simply taps away at her keyboard.

“She’s here,” Francine says.  “No gunshot wound, but sustained some lacerations from broken glass.  She needed some stitches.”

“Shit,” Gail groans out. She’s the cop, she’s the one who goes out in gets shot at, not Holly, never Holly. “Where?”

“Down the hall, third on the right.  She should be about to be discharged.”  Francine grips her wrist before Gail can take off.  “Take a breath, honey.  If it was bad, she would be in the ER.”

Gail doesn’t say anything—she doesn’t do words well, words are Holly’s thing—but she lets Francine squeeze her hand briefly before she speeds off down the hallway.

Holly is sitting on an exam table when Gail all but bursts in, startling them both.  The blue button down she’d been wearing is sitting on the table at her side, covered in splotches of dark red, and the white shirt under it has dried blood down the right side. 

Gail jerks to a halt in the doorway, her hand tight enough on the doorknob to make it creak.  There’s a line of stitches, black and ugly, stretching over Holly’s temple.

“Hi,” Holly says.  She puts her glasses on carefully, wincing; her hands are shaking visibly.

“Hi?” Gail says.  “You’re just going to say _hi_?”

“Well, I was pretty sure you weren’t going to say anything first,” Holly says with a shrug.  “Is there a script I should be following?  Specific protocols for after watching someone get shot?”

“A pro—Jesus Christ,” Gail mutters.  She shoves the door closed behind her and crosses the room.  Her fingers tremble, hovering an inch away from the line of tiny stitches.  “Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” Holly says softly.  One side of her mouth quirks up in to a half-smile, but it doesn’t last.  “They even got a plastic surgeon to come do the stitches.  Said I shouldn’t even really have a scar.”

“What were you even doing in the station?”  She should move, pull her hand back from Holly’s face, kiss her, do _something_ , but her spine is so tight with relief and confusion and fear that her teeth ache and her arms are too heavy to do anything but hover.

“I came to see you,” Holly says simply.  “I wanted to make sure you hadn’t been shot or something.”

“You—God, you stupid genius.”  She finally breaks her paralysis, all but yanking Holly into a hug, forehead burrowing into Holly’s shoulder.  “I’m so glad you’re okay.”

Holly’s hands aren’t shaking anymore, one pressing heavily against the vest between Gail’s shoulderblades and the other tangling in her hair easily.  “You too,” she says quietly. 

“You should answer your stupid phone when people call you,” Gail grumbles into her shoulder, not ready to move yet. 

“It’s a hospital.”  Holly’s hand traces up and down her back and there’s too much between them—the vest and her uniform and the t-shirt under it—but it burns into Gail anyways.  “They made me turn it off.  Rules are rules.”

“Who the hell cares about _rules_?”

“You’re the police officer, I’m pretty sure you’re supposed to.”

“Shut up.”  Gail finally pulls back from the embrace, blinking against the sting in her eyes.  Holly stares at her evenly, but her gaze isn’t enough to distract Gail from the stitches, and her hand reaches for them again.  “Are you sure you’re okay?  Do you need anything?”

“I’m okay.”  Holly’s hand curve around her wrist.  She has soft hands, uncalloused, and they always smell a little like latex and hand sanitizer; her fingers  are long, wrapping completely around Gail’s wrist easily, her thumb sliding back and forth on the back of Gail’s hand.  “Really.  It wasn’t deep, I don’t have a concussion, the damage was purely superficial and—”

Gail kisses her, heavy and afraid, just like she had the first time.  She stands between Holly’s knees , hands tight on her hips, and presses up on her toes to reach the height that Holly’s seat on the table gives her.  Holly’s fingers curl around the edges of her vest where it hangs from her shoulders, pulling her closer. 

“You could have just said yes,” she mumbles into Holly’s mouth.

“Are you ever going to kiss me when there isn’t some kind of crisis going on?”

“Probably not,” Gail says drily.  She falters, her hands uncertain on Holly’s hips.  “About this afternoon, when you came by—”

“We can talk about it later,” Holly says.  She presses a kiss to Gail’s temple and pulls her into a tight embrace.  Gail grips tight to her hips, forehead dropping down to her shoulder.  She breathes in deep, counting her breaths and sorting through the scent of antiseptic and betadine until she finds the familiar perfume that Holly wears, the one she noticed for the first time sitting in a coat closet with a bottle of champagne.

“Okay,” she mumbles into Holly’s collarbone.  “Okay.”

“What happened to the detective that was shot?” Holly asks after a few minutes.

“He’s still in surgery.”  Gail sighs, and her breath skims over Holly’s throat, drawing a shudder out of her.  “Everyone is downstairs waiting.”  She pulls back reluctantly.

“You should go.”

The arguments that would normally rise instinctively, the stubbornness that would plant her heels to the floor, is nowhere to be found, and she sags tiredly.

“I—”

“Come on,” Holly interrupts, offering the same smile she did in coat closets and batting cages.   “I’ll go with you.”  She slides off the table, directing Gail back a few steps so she has space to pull her coat back on.    Her fingers shake, though, as she struggles with the buttons, and her smile falters.

Gail pulls her hands away gently, fitting buttons through holes slowly.  Dark grey covers the bloodstained white one button at a time until the only evidence left is the ugly line of sutures on her head.

“You should probably go home,” Gail says, fingers still wrapped around the edges of Holly’s coat. 

“It’s fine,” Holly says, one side of her mouth pushing up into that familiar half-smile, but it falters after only a second.

“Seriously, okay—”

“Gail, stop,” Holly says sharply.  “I just—don’t want to go home and sit around by myself and think about _this_ —”  She gestures to the stitches, the ruined blue shirt.  “All night.”

“Okay,” Gail concedes.  “Okay.”  She fits her hand around Holly’s deliberately and they walk down to the waiting room in silence.

Steve and Chris are standing together, forgotten Styrofoam cups of coffee in their hands.  Gail lets go of Holly’s hand after a brief squeeze so she can hug Steve tightly.

“Any news?”

“Nothing yet,” Chris says.

Gail nods and tucks her hand back around Holly’s, though if Holly’s coat happens to hide it halfway, she doesn’t stop it.  “Chris, Steve, this is Holly.”

They wind up in a bank of chairs facing the windows, Holly’s hand warm in Gail’s as they wait.  An hour passes, and then another, and Holly curls up sideways into her seat, pillowing the uninjured side of her head on her arms and drifting off to sleep. 

* * *

 

Swarek is finally out of surgery, and Andy goes back to visit him.  Gail watches her walk away, numb to the mess that her friend had put herself in, and then shakes Holly awake.  “He’s stable,” she says quietly.  “Come on, I’ll drive you home.”

She takes the squad car, leaving Chris to find his own way home.  She’ll get an earful for it, surely, for taking a car for personal reasons, but there’s no way in hell they’re sitting around any longer to wait for a cab.

Holly’s apartment is full of clutter, covered in books and papers and files.  “How can you keep your office so neat and your house looks like this?”

“Work is work.  Home is home.”  Holly shrugs out of her coat, hanging it from the rack by the front door.  She takes a deep breath, pushing her hands through her hair; one hand bumps her glasses, jarring them against her stitches, and she grimaces.  Gail’s chest aches at her wince, fingers curling into fists.  Holly pushes at her glasses, agitation building visibly in her shoulders.

“I know you have—whatever that you need to figure out, and that’s fine, I get it, but could—I just—”  She leans tiredly against the wall, shoulders slumping.  “Can you stay?  I just—really don’t want to be alone.”

“Yeah,” Gail says.  “Sure.”   She takes off her own jacket, handing it to Holly, and one hand falls to rest on the butt of her gun.  “Is there somewhere—”

“Lockbox,” Holly says as she hangs up Gail’s jacket.  She produces a metal box from the shelf in the closet with a combination lock on it.

“You just keep a lockbox in your coat closet?”

“I need somewhere to hide my drug money and fake identities.”  She smirks, familiar and easy and not at all like she was cut open by broken glass hours before, and unlocks the box, holding it open for Gail to deposit the service weapon into.

“If I wind up having to arrest you, that’s gonna suck.” 

Holly snaps the box shut and locks it, putting it back in the closet. Her shoulders sag once more, exhaustion sweeping back over her, and Gail grinds her teeth together. 

“Come on,” Holly mumbles, grabbing her hand and leading her through the apartment to her bedroom.

“I can sleep on the couch,” Gail says, even as she trails after Holly.

“Just—don’t.  Not right now, okay?  Don’t do that thing.”

“What thing?”

“The thing where you get all weird and scared.”  Holly rounds on her, her hands pressing against Gail’s cheeks, and it’s familiar but not, and Gail’s breath hitches somewhere behind the Kevlar covering her chest.  “If you have to freak out and run and go process whatever this is, fine, but just—tomorrow, okay?”

“Tomorrow,” Gail mutters.  “Okay.”  She fumbles with the Velcro on her vest, sighing as the weight lifts off her chest.  Holly takes it from her, weighing it in her hands before settling it on her desk, and Gail’s fingers trip up on the buckle of her belt because Holly’s are unbuttoning her uniform shirt.

“Do you have a shift tomorrow?”

“No.”  Her belt joins the vest, and her uniform shirt flutters down around her feet.  Gail pauses, one hand reaching out towards Holly’s stitches once more.  “Did they give you anything for the pain?”

“It doesn’t really hurt,” Holly says with a shrug.  She sits on the bed, toeing out of her boots and tossing them towards the closet. 

“It will,” Gail says quietly.  She sits down next to Holly, one hand rubbing over her own face.  There aren’t any scars, but sometimes she can still feel the cuts on her face, the blindfold heavy over her eyes, the paralyzing fear of being stuffed into the trunk of a car.  Her injuries weren’t even severe, but they still ached for days.  “You should try and stay ahead of the pain.”

“You have a lot of experience with stitches in your face?”  Holly falters as the words come out, her breath shaking, and she shakes her head violently.  “Don’t answer that.  I don’t want to know the answer to that.”

“Well,” Gail says, clenching at her knees.  “I _did_ just recently spend quality time on an Oxy trip.”  Drain cleaner is far easier to think about than serial killers.  “Do you have any advil?”

“Yeah, it’s in the bathroom,” Holly says tiredly.  “Medicine cabinet, top shelf.”

Gail retrieves the advil and a glass of water from the kitchen, returning to the bedroom to find Holly in sweatpants and a fresh t-shirt, the bloodstained one crumpled in her hands.  “How do you do it?” she asks, not looking away from the shirt. 

“Do what?” Gail sets the glass down on the dresser, not looking away from Holly’s slumped shoulders.

“Go out there, every day, when something like this might happen.”

“It’s not always like this.”

“But it is, isn’t it?” She balls the shirt up and throws it across the room.  It lands in the trash can by her dresser, flopping silently half in and half out.  “Maybe someone isn’t _hunting_ you all the time, but people shoot at you.  You don’t go outside without a bulletproof vest because someone might try to kill you anytime.”

Gail’s mouth is dry, words of reassurance dying in her throat because she doesn’t really believe them.

“Doesn’t it scare you?”

“Every day,” she says quietly.  She picks the glass back up, offering it and the advil to Holly.  “Come on, let’s crash.”

Holly swallows the advil without another word, draining the glass and setting it on the bedside table.  Gail unties her boots and accepts a pair of sweatpants the Holly offers her, changing without embarrassment because _sleep_ and not thinking about the last 24 hours is so much more important than modesty.

Gail curls onto her side, staring unabashedly at Holly’s profile.  From this side, she can’t see the stitches.  From this side, she can almost pretend that no one’s ever hurt Holly before, that Holly didn’t wind up in the hospital because she was in the wrong place at the wrong time, that Holly wasn’t in the wrong place at the wrong time because she was worried about Gail.

“I’m really glad you’re okay,” Gail says after long minutes in the dark.  Her voice is too loud for the middle of the night, for a shared bed and whatever it is that they’re beginning, but she’s never known how to be anything but brash anyways.

“You, too,” Holly murmurs, head rolling to the side to look at Gail.  She squints without her glasses, and it pulls on her stitches; she winces momentarily and Gail’s jaw tightens.  Her fingers clinch and unclench, and she reaches across the space between them, finding Holly’s hand and twining their fingers together. 

“You scare the crap out of me,” Gail says.  She presses her lips together as soon as the words are out, biting down as if she can pull them back in.  Holly wrinkles her nose in confusion, and Gail sighs.  This isn’t who she is, not in real life, but nothing is real in the middle of the night when Sam and Chloe might die and Holly has stitches in her head, so she speaks anyways because maybe she doesn’t really know herself that well.  “You’re like this wrench that got thrown into everything and now it doesn’t make sense anymore.”

“What doesn’t make sense?”

“Everything.  Me.  What I thought I knew about me.”  Gail exhales slowly, blowing air out through her lips loudly.  “Because if I want you, then that changes everything.”

“It doesn’t have to, you know.  There’s no fundamental difference—”

“I know, I just—thought I knew who I was, and what if I was wrong? Or what if I was _right_ and this is just some—phase and I’m that asshole?”

“Then we’re friends,” Holly says with a shrug.  “Look, Gail, if we have something, we have something.  I like you.  Maybe you like me.  If it turns into something serious, then that’s awesome.  If it doesn’t, then we’re friends, and that’s awesome, too.  If we’re friends and not—whatever else we might be, then that’s what we are.”

“Nothing is that easy,” Gail mutters.  “If it was that easy no one would ever get hurt.”

“People just don’t think things through before they do them, and when it doesn’t live up to their expectations, _then_ they get hurt.”  Holly shifts onto her side, squinting at Gail in the dark.  “Being your friend isn’t a consolation prize.”

“It can’t be that simple.”

“Maybe it can be.”  Holly yawns, settling more into her pillow.  “We can argue about it tomorrow if you really want.”

“Tomorrow you’re going to be more awake and using stupid big words again and I won’t stand a chance,” Gail says drily. 

“Kinda my point,” Holly says.  She yawns again.  “Go to sleep.”

“But—”

“Sleep.”

“I—”

“No.”

“You suck,” Gail mumbles.

“Only if you ask nicely,” Holly says without opening her eyes. 

“You’re such an asshole,” Gail says with a sigh.  The gap across the bed is too big, Holly too far away for her to protect—and there’s a stark stretch of black on Holly’s temple screaming at how utterly Gail had failed at that once already—so she tugs on Holly’s hand.  “Come here, you jerk.”   

Holly rolls with the momentum, shuffling closer and curling around Gail’s side.  Her foot hooks around Gail’s calf, head pillowing on Gail’s shoulder.  She’s asleep almost immediately, breath whispering across Gail’s throat and fingers curling around Gail’s t-shirt.

Gail measures her breaths against Holly’s, staring at the ceiling so she doesn’t stare at Holly’s stitches, or consider Sam and Chloe in the hospital, or how they almost lost Oliver, or the whistle of bullets flying past her.

It’s almost morning by the time she finally makes it to sleep, and Holly hasn’t moved an inch, her breaths still steady and calm in her sleep.

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this was totally supposed to just be a one-shot thing, i swears by the precious. but you know what they say about good intentions.
> 
> i should probably put a disclaimer of some kind stating that i've only actually seen like six full episodes of this show and random clips only beyond that. but then lesbians, and i feel compelled to writery things when lesbians. all deviations or fuck-ups from canon are because of that.
> 
> or because i'm high on cold medicine.

Morning comes closer to noon, with a buzzing phone somewhere against Gail’s thigh and a hot weight against the rest of her.  Her phone keeps vibrating in the--- hideously unfashionable but forever useful—cargo pocket on her left leg, but Holly doesn’t move from where she’s sprawled mostly on top of Gail.

Gail, who usually sleeps on her side, back to the edge of the bed, curled into a ball.  Gail, who usually kicks people away in her sleep.  Gail, who usually flops around and steals the covers until she’s chased Nick or Chris or whoever else she’s managed to dupe into her bed that night right on out of it.

The phone finally stops vibrating, and she exhales slowly.  Holly’s leg is wrapped around her own, hipbone pressed easily and suggestively between Gail’s, her hand curved under Gail’s arm.  Her hair splays across the t-shirt Gail wears under her uniform shirt, right over her chest, and the curvature of black sutures is deathly obvious against her skin.

Sutures.  Shooting.  Holly, hit with broken glass.  Gail takes in a slow, shuddering breath, tracing her fingers over the stitches.  Kissing in the hospital room, kissing in the interrogation room, kissing in the coat closet.  Her thumb hovers briefly in front of Holly’s lips, warming under her slow exhales, before Gail pushes it down to rest at her side.

Holly wakes eventually, rubbing her temple against Gail’s sternum like a cat.  “Morning,” she mumbles after a few moments, not moving from her spot on top of Gail.

“Hi,” Gail says hoarsely.  She hasn’t noticed her hand in Holly’s hair until Holly tilts minutely into the touch, murmuring something low in her throat that vibrates through Gail’s chest.  “Did you just purr?”

“Maybe,” Holly says.  Her eyes haven’t opened yet, and one hand tucks under Gail’s back, fingers splaying between the notches in her vertebra. 

“Weirdo.”

“You started it.”  Holly finally looks up, her chin sharp against Gail’s sternum.

“Did not.  Also, ow, stop, you have a bony chin.”

“I actually don’t.”

“Stop talking,” Gail mumbles.  Her hand is still tangled in Holly’s hair, black streaming through her fingers,

“Make me,” Holly says back, low and raspy, and Gail’s mouth dries out abruptly.  It could be easy, so easy, to deflect, to snark, to throw out a moment of sass and toss the comment aside, but instead her free hand is curling around the base of Holly’s skull, tugging insistently until she shifts up and Gail can kiss her.  Holly’s hands brace against the pillow on either side of Gail’s head, fingers flexing into the pillowcase, and it isn’t long until Gail is melting into the sensation, apprehension giving way to instinct as her hips are pushing up, her leg is haflway to wrapping around Holly’s hip, her hands are skidding down towards the hem of Holly’s shirt.

Gail jerks back into the mattress, her hands flying away from Holly’s body.

“I’m sorry,” Holly says after a moment, disappointment written into her jawline.

“No—I mean—”

“It’s okay,” Holly says, pushing herself up to sit on her heels, dragging a hand through her hair.  “You don’t—”

“I do!” Gail insists, shoving up to a sitting position.  It leaves her barely three inches from Holly, and she scrambles back towards the headboard. 

“Yes, obviously,” Holly says drily.  “Look, okay, I get it.  I wasn’t lying when I said it was cool if we’re friend, nothing else.”

“No, I just—can you I have five seconds to wake up?” Gail mutters.  “Jesus, not all of us wake up with our brains working at a hundred miles an hour.”

Holly stares at her, squinting without her glasses and arms crossed over her chest, before she finally sighs.  “I’m going to go make some coffee.”

“Wait, hold on.”  Gail’s fingers clamp down on Holly’s wrist, her free hand pausing halfway to Holly’s temple.  “How are you feeling?”

“Like I need coffee.”  Holly smirks at her, familiar and easy, and pries Gail’s fingers loose.  She pauses before standing, and kisses Gail softly, before padding out of the room, grabbing her glasses as she goes.

Gail lays in Holly’s bed, somewhere between dazed and terrified, her fingers burning, until Holly yells from the kitchen that the coffee is ready.

“I’m starving,” Holly says as she hands Gail a mug of coffee.

“I hope you’re not expecting me to cook, because that’s so not happening.  Do you have—”

A canister of sugar is held out in front of her.

“What about—”

Cream is produced from the refrigerator. 

“You’re creepy,” Gail informs her as she dumps a pound of sugar and a cup of cream into her coffee.

“Observant,” Holly says over the rim of her coffee, eyebrows lifted.  “Shouldn’t you be observant?  Never gonna make detective without it.  Would you like some coffee with your cream?”

“Don’t judge me.” Gail swallows half of her coffee, the heat burning down her throat, but she grits her teeth against it.

“I would never.”

“I don’t think I’m gay,” Gaily blurts out.  Holly’s eyebrows raise even further, her mouth quirking up into  a smile, and Gail drops her forehead into her hands.  “I mean—”

“We don’t have to do this, you know,” Holly says.  “Not yet, not if need to figure stuff out.”

“I don’t—I mean, I _do_ have stuff to figure out, but.” Gail bites off the end of the sentence sourly, frowning into her coffee. 

“Has anyone ever told you that you think too much?”

“Definitely not,” Gail drawls.

“Well, you do.”

“That’s hilarious, coming from someone who was spouting off a thesis on relationship theory in the middle of the night.”

Holly laughs, hopping up to sit on the counter.  “You have that cranky face on, except you look like if you think any harder your head might explode.”  She sets her coffee down and reaches out, fingers tangling in Gail’s t-shirt and pulling her over until she’s right in front of Holly, her stomach brushing against Holly’s knees.

“Don’t overcomplicate it.  Make it simple.  Yes or no questions only.”  Her fingers skim along Gail’s jaw and Gail’s eyes slip shut momentarily. 

“You’re afraid.  Yes or no.”

“I mean, it’s complicated, okay—” 

Holly claps a hand over her mouth.  “Do you understand the concept of _yes or no questions_?”  She smirks.  “Please answer with a yes or no.”

Gail wrinkles her nose and throws up her hands instead of biting Holly.  “Yes,” she mumbles, and Holly’s hand falls back to her shoulder.

“So, again: you’re afraid.  Yes or no.”

“Yes.”

“You’re afraid of what people will think if you’re with a woman.”

“I—no.  I don’t think so.” 

“You’re afraid of what your family will think if you’re with a woman.”

“Frankly, I don’t give a shit what they think at this point.”

“God, you really suck at this yes or no thing.  You’re afraid of being with anyone, because of what happened with Nick.”

Gail huffs out a sigh.  “Yeah, kinda.”

“So, that’s the problem.  What’s the solution?”

“I don’t know, you tell me, Yoda.”  Gail shrugs and huffs out a sigh, eyes dropping down towards the floor.  She’s standing too close to Holly, though, because her sightline is nothing but Holly’s legs and the fact that at some unknown point in time Gail’s hands started touching them, because her fingers are gripping lightly at the sweatpants covering her knees.

“Does that mean if I tell you what to do you’re actually going to do it?”

“No,” Gail grumbles.  “Of course not.”

“Right,” Holly says with a smirk.  “Because words.  You’re not a fan of words.”  Her fingers trail down Gail’s arms until they find her hands.  “So what if I—”

She leans down and kisses Gail again, and Gail finally moves, pushing forward until she’s standing between Holly’s knees once more, hands tight on her legs and the ground falling away, taking history and mistakes and failures with it for brief, heated moments.

Gail’s phone rings again, vibrating loudly from her pocket.

“You going to answer that?” Holly says after a moment, the words escaping into Gail’s mouth more than her ears.

“Nope.”  She presses forward and kisses Holly again.

Five minutes later, it rings again.

“Maybe you should answer it,” Holly says.  Her shallow breaths press, hot and dangerous, against Gail’s  throat, and Gail groans in frustration.

“You have to got to be kidding me,” she mutters.  She yanks the phone out of her pocket, and her scowl immediately fades at Dov’s name flashing on the screen.  “Hey, is everyone okay?”

“Yeah,” he says tiredly across the phone.  “Chloe’s still out, but Swarek is doing better.  But, uh—there’s a kid here and she’s deaf?  And she won’t talk to the interpreter and won’t say anything except that she wants to talk to you.”

“Oh,” Gail says.  “Right.  Danielle.”  She wrinkles her nose when Holly raises an eyebrow at her, and shakes her head violently, her free hand still pressed against Holly’s thigh.  “Is her grandfather still in the hospital?”

“Yeah, he’s alive but he’s still out, and we don’t know who to call for the kid because the guy’s place is a total disaster, so can you please come down here and talk to her so I can stop feeling guilty for wanting to ignore her and focus on my girlfriend?”

“I—yeah.  I’ll be there.  Tell the interpreter to tell her I’m coming.”

“Great.  Hurry, I feel like she’s judging me because I can’t do sign language.”

“She’s watched her grandfather have a heart attack, you moron, she isn’t judging you for anything but being a dick to her.” 

Holly chuckles into Gail’s neck, and Gail’s entire body shudders, her fingers digging into Holly’s thigh.  “Dov, I gotta go, I’ll be there.  Just—get her something to eat and don’t glare at her, it’s not her fault.”

“Yeah, sure.”

“Dov, wait,” Gail says hurriedly.  “Just—Chloe will be okay, alright?  She’ll be fine.”

“Yeah,” Dov says, flat and dead.  “See you when I see you.”  He hangs up, and Gail sighs, dropping the phone back into her pocket.

“So,” Holly says, pressing a kiss against Gail’s neck.  “Who’s _Danielle_?”

“What, are you jealous?”

“No comment.”  Her fingers skim up and down Gail’s arms, pulling another shiver out of her.

“She’s a kid.  From a 911 call.  She’s like nine.”

“Why does she want you and why does she need an interpreter?”

“Oliver and I responded to her 911 call when her grandfather had a heart attack.  And she’s deaf.”

Holly straightens up, one eyebrow quirking up.  “You know sign language?”

“Why is that so surprising?”

“Not surprising, just….interesting,” Holly amends.  She tugs Gail closer, kissing her again.  “Can you give me a ride back to the station before you go?  My car is still there.”

“Yeah, sure,” Gail says, distracted, and she pulls Holly back in by the shirt.

 

* * *

 

It takes longer than it reasonably should for Gail to get to the hospital, and only ten minutes of the extra time is because she had to take Holly to get her car.  She’s hurrying through corridors towards the cardiac center when her phone buzzes, and she yanks it out of her pocket, ready to yell at Dov for calling her again when a text from Holly flashes on the screen.

_Want to get dinner tonight?  Since we didn’t exactly finish talking this morning._

Gail is smiling, her lower lip tucked between her teeth, as she starts to respond, but she almost runs into Dov.  He has circles under his eyes, his shoulders somehow narrower than usual, and his mouth sags tiredly.

“Hey,” she says, shoving the phone back in her pocket.  He lasts a full second before falling into her, clinging tiredly to her.  She holds him up as best she can, guilt swarming through her because Chloe might die and she’s been making out with Holly all morning.

“It’s gonna be okay,” she mumbles into his shoulder.  “She’ll be okay.”

He sniffs loudly, the sound barely muffled by her shoulder, and she tightens her hold on him.  “Have you gone home yet?  Or, you know, showered?”

He shakes his head, sniffing again. 

“Okay.”  She unwraps his arms from her waist, stepping back and manhandling him into a more upright position.  “Dov.  Look at me.”  She snaps her fingers in front of his face.  “I know this is hard.  And it’s horrible, and everything sucks.  But you’re stronger than all of it, and what you’re going to do is get one of the thousand officers downstairs to give you a ride home so you can shower.  Chris will stay with Chloe, and if he can’t, I will.  You’re going to go home, and shower, and take a nap, and you’re going to come back here after that and deal.  Because the last thing she needs when she wakes up is you being dead on your feet.”  Her grip on his shoulder loosens, and she takes a slow breath.  “Just—trust me, okay.  You need to be on your game for her when she wakes up.”

“She’s married,” he mumbles.  “They’re not together, but she married her old partner, and she never told me, and he’s the one who gets to make the decisions and it’s going to kill her.”

“She—what?”  Gail shakes her head, dislodging her confusion.  “No.  Dov, it doesn’t matter.  She chose you, okay, that’s what matters.  And you’re not going to be sulky and smelling like crap when she wakes up, because you’re going to go home and shower and put on some clean clothes and remember that she chose you, and you chose her, and you two are a match made in nerd heaven, and that’s what matters.”

“Okay,” he says heavily.  “Okay.” 

“I’ll call Chris to come sit with her while I deal with Danielle.”

“Okay,” he says again.   He pauses, wiping a hand over his face.  “How’s Swarek?”

“Stable as of last night,” she says.  “Not out of the woods, but I also haven’t heard anything, and Traci or someone would have called me if—”

“Right,” he says.  “Okay.  I’ll see you later.”

“Okay,” she echoes.  She watches him make his way down the hallway, his thin form somehow thinner than usual, and blindly takes her phone out of her pocket. 

_I have to take care of Dov.  Breakfast?_

The response comes as she’s being lead back to meet with Danielle.

_I know a place.  Meet at mine at 7:00?_

 

* * *

 

“Okay, that one.”  Gail points at a table across the diner where a man accepts his check from the waitress.  

Holly studies him out of the corner of her eye, taking a casual sip of her orange juice.  “Mid-thirties.  Was an athlete when he was younger.  Probably lacrosse.  Still works out because he wants to keep the physique, but he’s not super committed to it.  Makes good money.  Lives within two blocks.”

Gail stares at her, breakfast abandoned.  “Lacrosse.  Really?”

“Sure,” Holly says arrogantly.  “Look at him, he’s totally got soccer legs, but he also has the shoulders of a football player or a rower.”

“And the not super committed to working out part?”

“He’s eating pancakes with like nine gallons of syrup.”

 “Good money?”

“That watch is a heart rate monitor that stores your workout.  I almost bought it once, but you can get the same value for a tenth the price.  His is just expensive because it can be.”

Gail slumps back in her booth, shaking her head.  “Is this what you do in your spare time?”

“What, you mean you don’t?” Holly takes another bite of her pancakes, mouth quirking into a smile around her fork.

“I just judge people based on their clothes, mostly.”

“How surprising,” Holly says drily.  She sits back in her seat, crossing her arms and tilting her head to the side as she stares at Gail, still smiling beatifically.

“Do me,” Gail says suddenly.

“Is that a proposition?  Because you really need to buy me a drink first.”

“You realize you’re only half as funny as you think you are, right?” Gail throws back, but she smiles in spite of herself.  “No, the thing.  The Sherlock thing.”

“Why?”

“Why not?”

“That is literally the worst response since _because I said so_.”

“What if I ask nicely?”

“Not happening.”  Holly leans her elbows on the table.  “And you’re just trying to avoid finishing our conversation from yesterday.”

“Am not.”

“Are so.”

“If we’re going to talk about terrible responses—”

“Gail,” Holly says quietly.  “If you don’t want to talk, we don’t have to, but just say that instead of trying to avoid it.”

“I’m not avoiding it,” Gail says.  She pokes at her hash browns with her fork.  “I just—kind of suck at it.”

“No kidding,” Holly says, kicking her lightly under the table.  “Do you remember the first day we met?”

“How ever could I forget,” Gail says drily. 

“We’d known each other for like six hours, and by the end of the day you were telling me that you create emergency situations to get out of relationships.”

Gail crosses her arms, mouth turning down at Holly’s recollection.  “So?”

“So,” Holly sighs.  “We talk about things.  It’s what we do, at least when you’re not making out with me, so why is talking about this any harder than talking about anything else?”

“I’m the one making out with you?” Gail says.  “Excuse me, _you_ kissed me first.  At the wedding.”

“You asked me to the wedding,” Holly points out.

“I’m not the only one making out with someone, you know,” Gail grumbles.  “There has been equal opportunity making out.”

“Yeah, okay,” Holly says with a laugh.  Her foot nudges against Gail’s calf playfully, and Gail rolls her eyes.

“Stop playing footsie with me.”

“I’m kicking you.  Gently.  Because you’re fragile.”

“I am _not_.”

“Yeah,” Holly says quietly.  “You really kind of are.  Everyone is.  It’s not a bad thing.”

Gail shifts in her seat, hands curling around her elbows and eyes drawing down to her half-eaten breakfast.  “I just—don’t want to screw anything up.”

“Well, I can tell you one thing that is definitely going to be a mistake, and that’s avoiding everything until we just stop talking.”

Gail groans, throwing her hands up.  “Okay.”

“What okay?”

“Okay, let’s—do something.”

“Do something,” Holly drawls out.  “Like…play Yahtzee?  Go kayaking?  Join a book club?  Go to the opera?”

“I don’t know, you’re the one who asked me out, you decide.”

“I—“ Holly shakes her head, pushing at her glasses and smiling that maddening half-smile that leaves Gail squirming in her seat.  “Okay.  So we’re going to—go out on a date?”

“Yep.  Better be a good one.”  She jabs a finger towards Holly sharply.  “No batting cages.  No sports.”

“So that’s a no to rock climbing, then?”

“Rock—no.  Definite no!”

Holly laughs, bright and full, like she always does when she’s definitely laughing at Gail and maybe laughing with her.  “Don’t worry, I hate rock climbing.  No sports.”

“And no opera, for God’s sake.”

“You’re picky.”  Holly snatches the check out of Gail’s hand when the waitress sets it down.  “Don’t give me that look, you only at like four bites of yours, I’m not going to make you pay for mine.”

“You’re totally still paying on our date,” Gail informs her, sliding into her coat.  Her hand jerks in surprise when Holly’s wraps around it—because the last time they did this was in a hospital, because Holly still has stitches, because even when things were good with Chris or great with Nick she was never really the handholding type—but she relaxes into it, letting Holly lead her out of the restaurant and to the parking lot. 

“So,” Gail says, leaning back against the cold metal of Holly’s car.  “When is this date that will involve no sports or opera?”

“How about tomorrow?”

“Assuming there are no homicidal maniacs putting anyone else in the hospital, sure,” Gail says.  She winces as soon as the words are out and Holly’s smile wavers.  “I—too soon.  Not something to joke about.”  Her fingers press against Holly’s temple, gentle beside the stitches, and Holly leans into the touch. 

“It’s okay,” Holly says.  “Tomorrow, barring any unfortunate incidents.”

“Okay,” Gail says dumbly, still staring at the stitches, fingers twitching against Holly’s skin.  She doesn’t protest when Holly’s hand curls around her jaw and pulls her in, mouth warm in contrast to the cold wind around them.

“When do you have to be at the station?” Holly mumbles into her mouth.

“In an hour.”

“Great, come on.” Holly manhandles her around, yanking the door to the backseat of her car open.

“What—seriously?”

“Oh, like you don’t want to keep this up,” Holly says with a smirk.  “Come on, it’ll fun.  Like high school, but with more flexibility and no teenage boys with boners.”

“You are possibly the least charming person I’ve ever met.”  Gail rolls hers eyes but doesn’t bother trying to not grin as Holly tugs her into the car.

“You talk a lot,” Holly says, pulling on the lapels of Gail’s jacket and pushing it off her shoulders.

“Pretty sure that’s my line.”

“How about just shut up and let me do this.”  She yanks Gail closer by the collar of her shirt.

“Well, if you insist.”

She’s fifteen minutes late for her shift, but half of the squad is at the hospital and over half of the cases for 15 have been taken over for the time being by other stations, so no one particularly cares when Gail slides into the locker room late and spends an extra five minutes covering up a hickey before starting her desk shift.


	3. Chapter 3

 

“You have to be joking.”  Gail stops abruptly, her hand slipping free as Holly keeps walking.  The warm buzz in her stomach from the drinks they’d just finished at the bar fades to the background.“Seriously?”

In front of them, the sign for the batting cages flashes happily into the twilight. 

“That depends.”  Holly is smirking again, and she shrugs.  Gail crosses her arms over her chest, seconds away from stomping her foot on the ground, and glares.  “Okay, okay, kidding.  That’s not where we’re going.”

“You’re such an asshole,” Gail mutters.  “Where are we going, then?”

“Well.”  Holly tucks her hand around Gail’s elbow, tugging her down the sidewalk.  “We can stop in about fifty feet, and go to a movie.  Or, we can keep walking another block, and go to a karaoke bar, get drunk, and judge everyone else.  Or, we can take the next left and go to dinner at this really, really good Thai place.  Or, we can take the next right, go half a block, and play laser tag, because maturity is overrated.”  She elbows Gail in the side.  “Or we can go to the batting cages.”

“No batting cages,” Gail says, elbowing her right back.  “Why do I have to choose?”

“You’re the picky one.”

“I am not!”

Holly levels a stare at her, one eyebrow raising above her glasses.  The stitches are still there, hidden beneath a subtle bandage, but the sight of them still pushes angrily against Gail’s stomach.

“Okay, fine.  But only compared to you, because you have no standards.”

“Yeah, okay, you keep telling yourself that,” Holly says with an eye roll.  “Come on, pick something.”

“Laser tag,” Gail says after a moment.  “Because if there’s one thing I can beat you at, it’s gonna be that.”

“Oh, really?”

“Well, I’m not going to be winning a nerd contest anytime soon,” Gail drawls.  “But I _am_ trained to shoot a gun.”

“Who says I’m not?”

“Are you?”  Gail matches Holly’s eyebrow raise, shooting a smirk her way as they round the corner.

“Okay, technically not, but I’m extremely good at shooting games.”

“Yeah, okay,” Gail says.  “We’ll see.  Loser is buying dinner at the really, really good Thai place.”

“Deal.”  Holly pulls the door open, ushering Gail in with half a bow. 

 

* * *

 

 

“Told you you were still paying for our date,” Gail says triumphantly, dangling a shining plastic first place medal in front of Holly’s face. 

“I’m pretty sure you cheated,” Holly says. 

“It’s not my fault you got shot.”

“You kissed me and I got shot in the process.  Because I was winning.  That’s the definition of your fault _and_ the definition of cheating.”

“What can I say?  Once I had to go undercover as a hooker.”

“Wait, really?” Holly’s steps slow, her eyes widening.  “I thought undercover was for—detectives or something.”

“Not always.”  Gail shoves her hands into her coat pockets, regret tightening her throat.  She never should have brought it up, because her mind is suddenly swimming in blindfolds and needles, car trunks and zipties.  “It was a one-time thing.  They needed a blonde.”

“Right.” Holly keeps a steady gaze on Gail, eyes careful and hands hovering, as if reaching for a skittish horse. 

“Right,” Gail mutters.  She huffs out a loud breath, the air crystallizing in front of her.  “I thought this place was close.”

“It is,” Holly says.  She curls a hand around Gail’s elbow.  “Next corner.”

“I was kidnapped,” Gail blurts out.  Her feet keep moving because that’s what she does, one after another, but Holly’s stumble to a stop, her hand clamping down on Gail’s elbow as her balance drops away.

“You—what?”

“It—it happened,” Gail says weakly.  Her eyes skid over the storefront behind Holly’s head, the sidewalk between their feet, around the edges of the plastic medal still in her other hand.  “They caught the guy and it’s fine and it shouldn’t still—but it happened.  To me,” she tacks on.  It’s the useless edition that makes her eyes sting, and she forces them open wide.

“You were kidnapped,” Holly repeats.  Her voice is thick, her jaw slack. 

“He’s in prison,” Gail says.  She palms the medal, pressing it heavy into the side of her thigh.  Her fingertips curve into her leg, nails digging in through the denim.  “He can’t touch anyone anymore.”

“You were _kidnapped_.”  Holly pushes her glasses up impatiently, glaring through them to where Gail shifts her weight from one foot to the other and back again.  “You were kidnapped, and someone was trying to kill all of you this week, and you still—you all still—”

“We’re cops.  You know we have to.”

“How many times will you let that hurt you, though?  What if it kills you?”

Gail is silent, pushing the medal into her leg until there’s sure to be a bruise in the morning.  She sniffles, weak and pathetic, and shakes her hair out of her eyes, tugging up through her spine until she’s standing straight and deliberate.

“So much for a normal date,” she mutters.  

“Yeah, well, finding out that the other half of your date was _kidnapped_ doesn’t really lend itself to normal.”

“Holly,” Gail says, quiet and uncertain and afraid.  “I just—didn’t want to lie about it.”

“Maybe next time start with a bottle of wine first,” Holly says.  She takes a deep breath, pushing her glasses up once more, and shakes her head until her own hair is out of her face.  Her hands come up, curling around the back of Gail’s neck, fingers tangling into the hair at the back of her head.  “You’re a cop.”

Gail is silent, her fingers finding the edges of Holly’s coat, and Holly grips her tighter.

“You’re a cop, and that means a lot of things, and that’s kind of terrifying.”

Gail’s eyes drop down, her shoulders slumping, but Holly’s thumb works free, skimming along her cheekbone once, twice, stealing breath out of Gail’s lungs.

“It’s scary,” Holly says, even and slow.  “But that isn’t going to scare me off.”

“Maybe it should.”

“My entire career is built on taking apart corpses.  Scary and weird have different connotations.”  One side of her mouth quirks up, halfhearted but trying.  The smile isn’t quite strong enough to reach into her voice but Gail softens under it anyways.  “I’m not a cop, and I still need a chance to process things and deal with the fact that you could get seriously hurt any day of the week but—I’m still part of the same system, Gail.  I know the risks, and I know why people put up with them.”

 “You don’t have to,” Gail says.  “This isn’t—”

“Yes it is,” Holly interrupts.  “Don’t try and talk me out of it now, Peck, you’re stuck with me for the foreseeable future.”

“Come on,” Gail says abruptly.  Her hands wrap around Holly’s wrists and tug, and she starts off down the sidewalk, away from the restaurant.

“What are—”

“We’re gonna have a rematch, and then we’re gonna go back to your place and get really drunk.”

“Oh really?”

“Don’t play coy with me, Stewart, I know you keep the good stuff at your place.”  Gail elbows her, offering half a smile and a raised eyebrow.  “Who knows maybe you’ll get lucky.”

“Is that so?” Holly says drily, and she coughs, her mouth suddenly dry.

“Yeah,” Gail says as they round the corner.  “Maybe this time you don’t get hit with a killshot by a teenybopper in a Metallica sweatshirt.”

Holly laughs, bright and loud in the open air, and Gail leans into her side subtly.  An arm wraps around her shoulders, and Gail slides her fingers through Holly’s, only half-listening as Holly starts on a ramble about cheating and the importance of good sportsmanship.

“By the way,” she says as they’re suiting up for the second time.  “You still owe me dinner.”  She winks at Holly just as the attendant shoos them off in opposite direction, the lights dimming around them.


End file.
